"Idly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Idly he raised his steel bar, and struck it against the partition back of the safe. To his astonishment the partition seemed to fall inward, revealing a secret compartment. The lad leaned forward to bring the light for his helmet ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... me to my room on the previous night, which he made a point of doing perhaps because he wished to talk over the matter of the snakes that had found their way into his pockets, had shown me a bell in it which he said rang outside his door. He called it an "emergency bell." I remarked idly that it was improbable that I should have any ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... combat. With her charge, however, this could never be said to be the case, Emily knew her heart, felt her love, and revered her principles too deeply, to throw away an admonition, or disregard a precept, that fell from lips she knew never spoke idly or without consideration. ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... world of their Uranian art Endures forever; while the evil done In the poor drama of their mortal scene, Is but a passing cloud before the sun; Space hath no record where the mist hath been. Boots it to us if Shakspeare erred like man? Why idly question that most mystic life? Eno' the giver in his gifts to scan; To bless the sheaves with which thy fields are rife, Nor, blundering, guess through what obstructive clay The glorious ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which encircled and floated upon it. White and yellow flags and brown velvet rushes grew thick about its edge, and water-lilies opened and shut upon its surface. An avenue of wonderful limes led down to a flight of mossy steps, by which in times gone by people had descended to the boat which rocked idly in the soft green gloom. There was an island on it, on which roses had been planted and left to run wild; early in the year daffodils and other spring flowers burst up through the grass and waved scented heads. Lady Walderhurst had discovered the place during her honeymoon, and had loved it fondly ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she remembers a youth she once saw, and believes that he lives near by, in Florence, toward which city she idly looks out in the summer evening from the veranda of her hotel, placed on the side of ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni
... staff above a big building near the water, a half-masted flag hung idly in the faintly stirring air. It hung there, he knew, for his brother's sake. He watched it thoughtfully, wondering.... There had been such an abounding insolence of life in big Mark Shore.... It was hard to believe that ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... "He that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... Martha chanced to sit down in a vacant chair, just out of the range of the cricketers. She lolled back and idly watched the batsmen. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... have set a high value upon books: if I have vainly imagined literature to be more fashionable than it really is, or idly hoped to revive a taste well nigh extinguished, I know not why I should be persecuted with clamour and invective, since I only shall suffer by my mistake, and be obliged to keep those books, which I was in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Huns themselves were not adequate to their power and prosperity. Their victorious hordes had spread from the Volga to the Danube; but the public force was exhausted by the discord of independent chieftains; their valor was idly consumed in obscure and predatory excursions; and they often degraded their national dignity, by condescending, for the hopes of spoil, to enlist under the banners of their fugitive enemies. In the reign of Attila, [1] the Huns again became the terror of the world; and I shall now ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... near a table, sewing diligently at some great white piece of household work. Every now and then she stopped to snuff the candle; sometimes she began to ply her needle again immediately; but once or twice she let her busy hands lie idly in her lap, and looked into the darkness, and thought deeply for a moment or two; these pauses always ended in a kind of sobbing sigh, the sound of which seemed to restore her to self-consciousness, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... in utter simplicity. But when we approach them in their third, or personal, character (and, for its power over the whole national mind, this is far the leading one), we are met at once by questions which may well put all of you at pause. Were they idly imagined to be real beings? and did they so usurp the place of the true God? Or were they actually real beings,—evil spirits,—leading men away from the true God? Or is it conceivable that they might have been real beings,—good ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... just finished her enchanting story one morning, and was glancing idly down the hill, watching the toilers who bent over as if they were carrying heavy loads, or drawing something behind them. Physical culture had not yet been applied to the fine art ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... second of the three young men—the one looking out of the window, drumming idly on the glass, and continually tossing back his head to clear the long black hair from his brow, over which it hung in an incurable cowlick—was a short, compact, nervous person, twenty-five years old. Mr. Overtop had been educated for the law, but, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... was left alone. Waiting, he stood there, idly fingering the scented note he had received from the page. As he turned it in his fingers the superscription came uppermost, and he turned it no more. His eyes lost their absorbed look, their glance quickened into attention, a frown shaped itself between them like a scar; his breathing, suspended ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... or at least it seemed like chance, Helen found herself a few steps behind the others, with Mr. Brown by her side. They, too, walked along in unbroken silence. His eyes were steadily fixed upon the ground, hers were wandering idly across the sparkling blue sea with its foam-crested furrows to the horizon. Whatever her thoughts were, they had changed her expression for the time; to a certain extent its late definiteness was gone, and a dreamy, refined abstraction had taken ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the seven "deadly sins" under the regime of Czar Brench. Dropping a book or a slate, wriggling about in your seat, whispering to a seatmate, sitting idly without seeming to study and not knowing your lesson reasonably well ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... interesting. Last of all she opened a plain envelope with typewritten directions. The enclosure, also typewritten, gave a first impression of an announcement of a special sale, or request for assistance from some charitable organization. Idly she glanced at it, flipped it over, and found it to be unsigned. A word or two caught her attention. She turned ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... morning, and creeping up through the long grass, found its surface quite covered with water-fowl of every description, from the black swan to the beautiful pigmy goose. A volley, fired at a concerted signal, strewed the surface of the lake with the dead and wounded, and we were compelled to stand idly on the bank until the wind wafted the game ashore, for at the report of the guns two or three heavy splashes and as many dusky forms gliding into the water betokened that we had disturbed alligators, either having a nap, or lying in wait for kangaroos and wallaby coming down to drink. ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... seemed a strong and goodly place, but alas! it stood on magic ground, and within the enchanted circle of its shadow an evil spell fell on every knight who set foot therein. As my love and I looked idly at the mighty keep a horrible and churlish warrior, twice the size of mortal man, rushed forth in complete armour; grim and fierce-looking he was, armed with a huge club, and sternly he bade my knight leave me to him and go his way alone. Then my love drew ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... Mr. Rowles went out to look up and down the river, and to prophesy the weather. It was still and cloudless and warm. While he was standing idly beside the running water, listening to the twitter of birds and the lowing of cows, he heard yet another cry, that of a man; and presently he saw on the far-off bank the figure of a big, burly man ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... disturbers of Conrad's peace of mind, After some little search the East Tennessee woman was found in camp, somewhat the worse for the experiences of the day before, but awaiting her fate content idly smoking a cob-pipe. She was brought to me, and put in duress under charge of the division surgeon until her companion could be secured. To the doctor she related that the year before she had "refugeed" from East Tennessee, and on ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... and breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health; the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; the gliding on, at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red burning spot high up, ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... the woman, garbed by an artist. It seemed the great pearls in her ears were not more milkily white than her throat, and he was sure were also her little slender hands, that did not fidget, but lay idly in her lap, holding her blue parasol. He would like to have taken off ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... for this very thing I would he were condemned. I can go nowhere but I hear of Aristides the Just." Aristides inquired no further, but took the shell, and wrote his name on it as desired. The absence of Aristides soon dissipated the apprehensions which his countrymen had so idly indulged. He was in a short time recalled, and for many years after took a leading part in the affairs of the republic, without showing the least resentment against his enemies, or seeking any other gratification than that of serving ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... with childish tears, My heart is idly stirr'd, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard. Thus fares it still in our decay, And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what age takes away Than what it ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... the cannon, shotted and primed, lay silent on their carriages, while the soldiers from the ramparts looked wonderingly, idly on. General Gage did not dare to fire on the people, fearing they would sweep like an inundation over the ramparts, when he knew a general massacre ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... at Mons, and we have seen already the feminine adroitness with which his sister of Navarre had prepared his entrance. Not in vain had she cajoled the commandant of Cambray citadel; not idly had she led captive the hearts of Lalain and his Countess, thus securing the important province of Hainault for the Duke. Don John might, indeed, gnash his teeth with rage, as he marked the result of all the feasting and flattery, the piping ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... his mates had promised to meet him, but he found that he had still half an hour to spare, as he had come down early to mark a pak-ah-pu ticket at the Chinaman's in Hay Street. So he lit a cigarette and sauntered idly through the markets to ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... and the sky. He had constantly experienced it for so long now, eight years, as to make it seem merely natural. While he ploughed steadily forward through the shifting sand of the coulee, his thought drifted idly back over those years, and sometimes he smiled, and occasionally frowned, as various incidents returned to memory. It had been a rough life, yet one not unusual to those of his generation. Born of ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... as though starting on a pleasure-trip in peaceful waters, and Ted watched in breathless admiration to see what would happen next. Klake paddled swiftly out to sea, drawing as near as he dared to where the huge monster splashed idly up and down like a great puppy at play. He stopped the kiak and watched; then poised his spear and threw it, and so swift and graceful was his gesture that Ted exclaimed ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... could," he said, idly splitting the bark from a section of sugar-cane. "I've no doubt you could do much for me. If every man could do as much for himself as he can for others, every country in the world would be holding millenniums instead ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... already described as a middle-aged warrior. He was strong, iron-limbed and daring, but was not to be compared as respects grace, dignity and manly beauty to Deerfoot. What specially attracted Jack's attention was the rifle which he idly held with one hand while talking, the stock resting on the ground. It was the finest weapon the lad had ever seen—that is so far as appearance went. The stock was ornamented with silver, and the make and finish were as complete as was ever ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the hoary brute that led the van; and then I leaned back in my chair, and I thought—perhaps some latent association suggested what seemed a thing so unlikely—of a fine print in my portfolio from Vandyke's noble picture of Belisarius. Idly I traced with my pencil, as I leaned back, on an envelope that lay upon the table, this little inscription. It was mere fiddling; and, absurd as it looked, there was nothing but an honest meaning in it:—'20,000l. Date Obolum Belisario!' My dear father had translated the little Latin inscription ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... a letter to the home folks, and in it he had complained that never before had he spent such a weary, lonesome day as this Thanksgiving Day had been. Having finished this letter, he sat for a long time gazing idly into the open fire that snapped cinders all over the hearthstone and sent its red forks dancing up the chimney to join the winds that frolicked and gambolled across the Kansas prairies that raw November night. It had rained hard all day, and was cold; and ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... approbation of all the chiefs; and I instantly saw the reason. Omai had, as I have already mentioned, vainly flattered himself that I meant to use force in restoring him to his father's lands in Ulietea, and he had talked idly, and without any authority from me, on this subject, to some of the present assembly, who dreamed of nothing less than a hostile invasion of Ulietea, and of being assisted by me to drive the Bolabola men out ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... "Hold on!" said Mr. Heatherbloom, whose ideas were surging fast. This youth had managed to come here at her instigation. Had she made a friend of him, an ally? He did not appear an heroic one, but he was, no doubt, the best that had offered. Betty Dalrymple was not one to sit idly; she would seek ways and means. She was clever, knew how to use those violet eyes. (Did not Mr. Heatherbloom himself remember?) Who was he—this nocturnal caller? Not an officer—he was too young. Cabin-boy, perhaps? More likely the operator. Mr. Heatherbloom had noticed that the yacht was provided ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... in getting interested in some other object; for that will leave distracting ideas in the mind which will persist when you resume work. Make the rest a time of physical and mental relief. Move cramped muscles, rest your eyes and let your thoughts idly wander; then come back to work in ten or fifteen minutes and you will be amazed at the refreshed feeling with which you do your work and at the accession of new energy that will come to you. Keep on at this new plane and your ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... of conquest, and enough of war! Ambition's cloy'd—the heart resumes its rights. When England's king, and England's good, requir'd, This arm not idly the keen falchion brandish'd: Enough—for vaunting misbecomes a soldier. I live, I am return'd—am near Elwina! Seest thou those turrets? Yes, that castle holds her; But wherefore tell thee this? for thou hast seen her. How look'd, what said she? Did ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... I should fashion images to rest idly on their pedestals, nay but by every trading-ship and plying boat forth from Aigina fare, sweet song of mine, and bear abroad the news, how that Lampon's son, the strong-limbed Pytheas, hath won at Nemea the pankratiast's crown, while on ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... days in his lord's vineyard"; to sit or stand idly resting upon his elbows, instead of labouring in the vineyard. "A sovereign shame so elbows him."—King Lear, Act iv, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... tassels of yarn tobacco pouches. Most of them were half-breeds, young men eager to show the smartness of a veneer of civilized vices. But this did not bother Colonel Howell, for Moosetooth and La Biche were alone responsible and these two men well enacted the roles of foremen. Sitting idly on the bank, cutting new pipes of tobacco or breaking twigs, with slow guttural exclamations they directed the ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... week, I sat out on the tiny porch, idly watching a fat spider throw his ropes from the box-bush to the step. I had been sitting there for three hours, and only one creaking farm-wagon had passed, and two dirty brown-legged children. The air was breathless ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... his pipe down silently before it was half smoked, and went off to bed, and the next day he complained of pain and drowsiness; and Prissy cooked some of her messes and soothing possets, and made much of him as he lay on his pillow looking idly out on the October sunshine. And the next day, as the pain and drowsiness did not diminish, she very wisely suggested that a doctor should be sent for; and as Dr. Foster stood beside him, asking him questions rather gravely, a sudden thought ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... for alms. Then close to the gate he saw that for which he searched: a man sitting apart with a blanket over his head. No one spoke to the man, and for his part he never moved. He sat erect with his legs crossed in front of him and his hands resting idly on his knees, a strange and rather grim figure; so motionless, so utterly lifeless he seemed. The blanket reached almost to the ground behind and hung down to his lap in front, and Shere Ali noticed that a leathern begging-bowl at his side was well filled with coins. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... shorter and more slender. It was easy, but risky going. Small pyramids of soil dotted the ground in different directions, some massed together almost in circles, others at wider intervals. At the edge of one of them he stopped and commenced idly burrowing with his fore feet. For a few inches the light, crumbling earth yielded easily to his efforts. Then the floor seemed to subside beneath him, and he found a shelter ready made. Two narrow rough-hewn tunnels led from beneath the centre of the heap. He rested for a few minutes, then ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... out of the cabin hatch, however, there was enough breeze to flutter a piece of paper that had been caught in the mainsail halyard; it fluttered there lonely in the morning. Nothing else was astir but it and I, and I took it up in my hand, idly. As I did so, George reared ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... departure of the carrier that day, the wind fell so much that the admiral deemed it advisable not to put down the nets. Before long the light air died away altogether, and the fleet was left floating idly, in picturesque groups and with flapping ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... under the very hands of men who were no wilful innovators. Thus it was here, in the later work of Prior Saint-Jean, all unconsciously. The mysterious harper sat there always, at the topmost point achieved; played, idly enough it might seem, on his precious instrument, but kept in fact the hard taxed workmen literally in tune, working for once with a ready will, and, so to speak, with really inventive hands—working expeditiously, in this favourable ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... so far as the remainder of the visit to this old estate was concerned: he could not join the others at the feast presently spread under the trees on the lawn, or in the sports that followed; but had to pass the time lying idly on a pallet beside the fire, with nothing to entertain him but his own thoughts and watching the servants, until, their work done, they too wandered away in ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... Lounging idly in the deserted little waiting-room was the usual shabby, bored, lonely ticket-seller, prodigiously indifferent to the grave beauty of the scene before him and to the throng of ancient memories jostling him where he stood. Without troubling to look at his watch, he informed the two ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... up to her, and then I saw that she had a hammer in her right hand and a broad-headed nail in her left. I wondered idly what she was about with these things, when she stooped and began to hammer the nail into the iron-hard ground, and I could hear her muttering some ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... Morgan, throwing the boat-chain around a willow and letting the oars float idly beside the boat. Then, taking Amelie in his arms, he said, "You were right, my Amelie. Oh! blind weak beings! It is at the very moment that happiness knocks at our door that ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... in black; from the day that she heard her lover was dead, she would wear no other colour, and as she gazed, with her hands idly clasped before her, out at the driving sleet and snow, Mr. Fraser thought that he had never seen statue, picture, or woman of such sweet, yet majestic beauty. But it had been filched from the features of an immortal. The spirit-look which at ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... length of his chin on Skipper's knee and gazed long and earnestly into Skipper's face. This time Skipper knew, and was pleasantly thrilled; but still he gave no sign. Jerry tried a new tack. Skipper's hand drooped idly, half open, from where the forearm rested on the other knee. Into the part-open hand Jerry thrust his soft golden muzzle to the eyes and remained quite still. Had he been situated to see, he would have seen a twinkle in Skipper's eyes, which had been withdrawn from the ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... meeting her there, or of receiving a letter from her telling of some other destination—all which must have implied a miraculous foreknowledge in her, and in Deronda a bird-like facility in flying about and perching idly. Still he was there, and though Grandcourt would not make a fool of himself by fabrications that others might call preposterous, he was not, for all that, disposed to admit fully that Deronda's presence was, so far as Gwendolen ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... eyes are downcast, for the light Is lingering on your lids—forgetting How late it is—for one last sight Of you the sun delays his setting. One hand droops idly from the boat, And round the white and swaying fingers, Like half-blown lilies gone afloat, The amorous ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... sat chatting, watching the ponies, and idly plucking flowers, they heard footsteps coming along the road, and presently a woman carrying a baby appeared round the corner. She was young and dark and gipsy-looking, and wore large ear-rings and a red cotton handkerchief knotted loosely round her brown throat. She stopped at ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... same unaccountable impulse, she crossed the room and listened at the door which led into her own suite, and which she perceived was bolted on this side as well as her own. She listened at first idly, afterwards breathlessly. In a few moments she was convinced that her senses were not playing her false. Some one was moving stealthily about in her room, the key to which was even at that moment in her hand. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... One false step, one luckless accident, an obstacle on the track of a train, the tangling of the cord in shifting a sail, and the penknife, the pen, the papers, the trivial articles of dress and clothing, which to-day you toss idly and jestingly from hand to hand, may become dread memorials of that awful tragedy whose deep abyss ever underlies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... apparently interwoven in the fibre of all mariners ashore. He is not of a proselytising disposition. Strong Orangeman, an Ulster Protestant, and—the rest. So, thinking of him, I fare onward, watching the show. Men and maidens idly saunter along, or hasten to the house of God. Why, I wonder, do girls of religious disposition allow themselves so little time to dress? Two or three have passed me; one had a button loose at the back of her dress; another's "stole" ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... took it up. It was a mere truism. Nothing under canvas could be expected to make a port on such an idle night of dreamy splendour and spiritual stillness. We would have to glide idly to and fro, keeping our station within the appointed bearings, and, unless a fresh breeze sprang up with the dawn, we would land before sunrise on a small islet that, within two miles of us, shone like a lump of frozen ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... from the city one warm morning and found Sylvia sitting idly in the hall. She left her preparations all to Prue, who revelled in such things, and applied herself diligently to her lesson as if afraid she might not learn it as she should. Half way up stairs Mark turned ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... supervening upon the nervous state in which she had been when I encountered her, had produced one of those mental inhibitions in which the mind, to save the reason, obliterates temporarily not only all memory of the past, but also all present sights and sounds which may serve to recall it. She looked idly at the body of the dead man, and I was sure that she saw nothing but the worn woodwork ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... spake the Duke, and then awhile stood mute, And idly struck sweet chords upon his lute, Watching Yolande's fair, frowning face the while, With eyes that held a roguish, wistful smile. She, meeting now these eyes of laughing blue, Felt her cheeks ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... addressed, accepted Charley's suggestions, cheerfully, and he and the captain departed to carry out their own task. When they returned laden with the balance of the canoe's cargo, Walter was standing idly by the fire ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was sitting by the open piano in her cosy apartments in a street off the Strand, idly striking a note here and there and humming the air of a new song; but her cough, which was incessant, made singing almost out ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... lately produced from the same cause. And while the functions of our National Treasury should be few and simple, and while its best condition would be reached, I believe, by its entire disconnection with private business interests, yet when, by a perversion of its purposes, it idly holds money uselessly subtracted from the channels of trade, there seems to be reason for the claim that some legitimate means should be devised by the Government to restore in an emergency, without waste or extravagance, such money to its place ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... bower with a brush and pallet in order to paint a picture and soliloquises thus: "Be still, my foolish heart, nor idly throb for one so high above thy hopes. Why thus anxious to behold that form, one only view of which has inspired such painful agitation? Ungrateful, too, as weak, to fly the breast that has been ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... it should be consider'd by these, that no one is Born into the World to live idly; enjoying the Fruit and Benefit of other Peoples Labours, without contributing reciprocally some way or other, to the good of the Community answerably to that Station wherein God (the common Father of all) has plac'd them; who has evidently intended ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... upon whisky will flow into other channels, much less likely to produce evil and much more likely to produce employment. And if the tax on undeveloped land, on land, that is to say, which is kept out of the market, which is held up idly in order that its owner may reap unearned profit by the exertions and through the needs of the surrounding community, if that tax should have the effect of breaking this monopoly and of making land cheaper, a tremendous check on every form of productive activity ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... "the Lord will not hear me." But if I be truly sincere he will, and then it is no mater whether I kneel, or stand, or sit, or lie, or walk; for I shall do none of these, nor put up my prayers under any of these circumstances, lightly foolishly, and idly, but to beautify this gesture with the inward working of my mind and spirit in prayer; that whether I stand or sit, walk or lie down, glory and gravity, humility and sincerity shall make my prayer profitable, and my outward behaviour ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... been straying away idly and uninterruptedly to the past. They were now recalled abruptly to present emergencies by certain unexpected appearances which met his eye, the moment he looked down the lane along ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... before this, one of the hired hands on the ranch was going to his cabin in the dusk; and swinging his hand idly to catch the tops of tall grass by the side of the path, he suddenly touched something warm and soft. Instantly he grasped a handful of the substance. At the same moment some sort of an animal bounded off in the dark. Holding ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... head, the expression of hopelessness, which had taken the place of that of animation, in turn succeeded by one of stern repose. He issued three orders to as many of the riders, showing that his mind had not been dwelling idly on the disaster, slipped his sword into its scabbard, and gathered up ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... is the especial charm and sorcery of Rome, that, sitting idly in her beautiful garden-ways, you can turn over a score of centuries and summon all their pomp and pain before you, as easily as little children can turn over the pages of a coloured picture-book until ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, and quick and active in carrying them into execution. Loudoun, instead of defending the colonies with his great army, left them totally expos'd while he paraded idly at Halifax, by which means Fort George was lost, besides, he derang'd all our mercantile operations, and distress'd our trade, by a long embargo on the exportation of provisions, on pretence of keeping supplies from being obtain'd ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... in those of the body, and, in spite of the authority of Solomon, it is probably a wise thing for men to take the full measure of it, which undoctored nature demands. The true waste of time of the sluggard is not in the amount of natural sleep he enjoys, but in the time idly spent in bed when sleep has ceased, and in misplaced and mistimed sleep, which is not due to any genuine craving of the body for rest, but simply to mental sluggishness, to ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Farrow." Her eyes caught the headline of the paragraph as she idly turned the page; she gave a little start. Her hands clutched ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... Rents, the heat seemed almost tropical. Possibly the dense overcrowding of this quarter with human life enhanced the burning sensation of the thick air breathed out and breathed in again, unrefreshed, by multitudes of lungs. Here, there, and everywhere human beings stood about idly. Groups of untidy women, in twos and threes, gossiped; lazy men lolled against the houses, smoking in sullen silence; and for every grown-up person there were fully a dozen of squalid children playing, shouting, staring, and squabbling with a ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... behaviour of him on the other side of the oak. He, too, has dismounted his captive, and laid her along the ground. But not to stand idly over. Instead, he leaves her, and walks away from the spot, having attached his horse to the trunk of the tree, by hooking the bridle-rein over a piece of projecting bark. He has no fear that she will make her escape, or attempt it. Before parting he has taken precautions against ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard: no man cry'd, God save him: No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home, But dust was thrown upon his sacred head, Which with such gentle ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... "I wondered idly what it meant, but it made no serious impression on me. I listened again for sounds in father's room. There was none. Struck again by the heavy silence—it was almost oppressive, coming after the rain—I went to the window. I stood there, I don't know how long. I think I was ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... shall not take de credit from you. I will write and expose dem—the world shall know what humbugs dey are, how de whole wealthy West-End stood idly by with her hands in de working-men's pockets while you vere building up de great organization. You know all de jargon-papers jump at vat I write, dey sign my name in vair large type—Melchitsedek Pinchas—under every ting, and I am so pleased with deir ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... man should name the name of Christ vainly, idly, in vain mirth, wantonness, false or vain swearing, or the like, and shall back this, his manner of naming the name of Christ, with all manner of justness and uprightness of life, would this answer the apostle's end in this his exhortation? Verily no; for this manner of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... no point to her words. The scene was, fortunately, a short one, and no sooner had they disappeared than a young man entered. He held a lute in his left hand, and with his right he twanged the strings idly. He was King Cophetua, and many times during rehearsal Alice had warned May that her reading of the character was not right; but May did not seem able to accommodate herself to the author's view of the character, and, after a few minutes, fell back into her old swagger; and now, excited ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... dance made. From the side of the table where Kennedy was seated he could catch an occasional glimpse of the face of Marie. I noticed that he had torn a blank page off the back of the menu and with a stub of a pencil was half idly writing. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... were upon the south porch of the Sobrante ranch house, the former busy as usual, the latter idly enjoying her charming surroundings as she swung to and fro ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... through; but she read it idly. It made no more appeal to her just then than did half a dozen of the other ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... island crowded to his standard, and he invaded Gaul with a fleet and army, which were long afterwards remembered, as the emigration of a considerable part of the British nation. [13] The emperor, in his peaceful residence of Paris, was alarmed by their hostile approach; and the darts which he idly wasted on lions and bears, might have been employed more honorably against the rebels. But his feeble efforts announced his degenerate spirit and desperate situation; and deprived him of the resources, which he still might have found, in the support ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... name. It was dusk on a winter's afternoon, and I peered through the thick glass from my seat. Suddenly another train came gliding in from the opposite direction, and stopped alongside of ours. I looked at the carriage which chanced to be abreast of mine, and idly read the black letters painted on a white board swinging from the brass handrail: BERLIN—COLOGNE—PARIS. Then I looked up at the window above. I started violently, and the cold perspiration broke out upon my forehead. In the dim light, not six feet from where ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... recovered and tidy after a feeble strafing the other day. Even two or three civilians travelling. Not many of the military—a hundred or so, perhaps, all waiting and smoking idly, each armed with his "Movement Order." The dull boom of guns not excessive, though there's a frequent "plom! plom! plom!" of the Archies, and the sky is dotted with clusters of pretty little shrapnel clouds. Sometimes the crack! crack! crack! crack! of machine guns high up in the ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... not boasted idly when he had said that his people would not panic. All the girls went white, and one or two gave low cries of ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... turn, Can tell troth, why the Saints should scorn, When it serves theirs, to swear and lye; 125 I think there's little reason why: Else h' has a greater pow'r than they, Which 't were impiety to say. W' are not commanded to forbear Indefinitely at all to swear; 130 But to swear idly, and in vain, Without self-interest or gain For breaking of an oath, and lying, Is but a kind of self-denying; A Saint-like virtue: and from hence 135 Some have broke oaths by Providence Some, to the glory of the Lord, Perjur'd themselves, and broke ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... reached its height and as the ships swung idly to their cables on the slack, the Danes thronged the bridge, thinking, doubtless, that we should attack when they were ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... We gathered idly round the disputants, glad of a distraction that would help to pass the time. A third person ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... on, duly encouraged and no longer so fearful of our smiles at his expense. "The impressions came from somewhere else. For instance, down the busy main street where men and women were bustling home from work, shopping at stalls and barrows, idly gossiping in groups, and all the rest of it, I saw that I aroused no interest and that no one turned to stare at me as a foreigner and stranger. I was utterly ignored, and my presence among them excited no special ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... out of the forest, straight into a little town, St. Maxime, with a picturesque port of its own, where red-sailed fishing boats lolled as idly as the dark-eyed young men in cafes near the shore. A few tourists walking out from the hotel on the hill gazed rather curiously at us in our fine blue car; and we gazed away from them, across a sapphire gulf, to ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... breakwater of boulders and the point on which the lighthouse stands. The air was extraordinarily close and oppressive. Even Priscilla seemed affected by it. She lay against the side of the boat with her hands trailing idly in the water. Frank sat with the useless tiller in his hand and watched the boom swing slowly across as the boat swayed this way or that with the current. Miss Rutherford, her face glistening with heat, had gone to sleep ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... happy past, the Summer of 1913, I first saw him idly seated in a deck-chair on the firm sands of——, on the East Coast. A quiet detached figure amid a crowd of joyous children. Hard by a boy and girl were building a moated fortress, but, alas! the swiftly incoming tide ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... the morn, With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming, Slow glided o'er a field late shorn Where walked a poet idly dreaming. He saw her, and joy lit his face, "Oh, vanish not at human speaking," He cried, "thou form of magic grace, Thou art the poem ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to wait where she was, in the dark, at the risk of hurting herself against the furniture. Then it struck her that Dolores must be dressing in the dark, for no light had come from the door as it was opened and shut. She remembered the blind sister then, and she wondered idly whether those who lived continually with the blind learned from them to move easily in the dark and to do everything without a light. The question did not interest her much, but while she was thinking of it the door opened again. A skirt ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... before believed existed. We were walking along a country lane to a turning where a trench boyau began. Just at the turning the nose of a "seventy-five" poked across the path. Although the gun was speaking at its high record of twenty shots per minute, several soldiers lolled idly about within a few yards, smoking cigarettes. We stood off at an angle slightly in front, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... evenings after this that David Grief, lounging under the after deck awning of the Kittiwake and idly scanning the meagre columns of the Papeete Avant-Coureur, sat suddenly up and almost rubbed his eyes. It was unbelievable, but there it was. The old South Seas Romance ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... Blindly, idly, he flung himself forward, meaning to scale the steps and grapple with his parallel, but in a moment the strong arms of Sigurd held him in the grip of a bear. Then he who stood at the summit of the ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to search for absent companions. Several glanced at Patty, but nobody spoke to her, or paid any particular attention, so she walked over to the sofa, and taking a book which she found there, sat idly turning the pages without reading them, and feeling very uncomfortable and extremely homesick. Everybody in the room, she thought, seemed talking, laughing, and joking with everyone else, and she was the only stranger amongst them. No, she was mistaken. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... word, nor deed of wrong, Nor thoughts that idly rove; But simple truth be on our tongue, And in our hearts ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... some minutes Miss Wingate stood leaning over the top rail of the low gate idly watching a group of Pratts, Turners, Mosbeys, Hoovers and Pikes playing a mysterious game, which necessitated wild dashes across a line drawn down the middle of the Road in the white dust, shrill cries of capture and frequent change of base. The day had been a long sunshiny ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... minds are at ease the while; but it is an employment which is trying to the nerves when long continued, at the best; and nothing can be worse for the harassed, and for those who want to escape from themselves. Writing is bad. The pen hangs idly suspended over the paper, or the sad thoughts that are alive within write themselves down. The safest and best of all occupations for such sufferers as are fit for it, is intercourse with young children. An infant ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... scattered o'er the land They loved, and freed, and crowned with glory; Their great names bear the felon's brand; 'Mongst murderers is placed their story. But idly their grave-spoilers thought, Disgrace, which fled in life before them, By craven judges could be brought, To spread in death, its shadow o'er them. For chain, nor judge, nor dastard king, Can ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... lights as they serpentined their way to us across the nearly calm water of the bay, idly toying with the ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... pilot, waited idly for the next move of his ship. He could only fume inwardly. This was no way for an Apache warrior to ride into battle. What would his grandfather think of a steed which directed itself into battle and which could kill its rider, not by accident, but in its normal ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino
... hither from Liverpool last week, and have spent the time idly since then, reposing myself after the four years of unnatural restraint in the Consulate. Being already pretty well acquainted with the neighborhood of Leamington, I have little or nothing to record about the prettiest, cheerfullest, cleanest of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who sat around the card-table in the cabin of the "Merry Witch" regarded the fifth man with a steady, implacable look of scorn. The solitary one could not face that terrible glance. His head drooped, and his gaze rested upon some cards which he idly fumbled as he waited, numbed and ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... in the household by sitting idly in a rocking-chair looking over some pictures which were on the table or staring out of the window. She offered to do nothing for Prudence. But, of course, Ida May was not very domestic. Living in ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... idly about Pats found himself becoming interested in the huge tapestry extending across the room at his right,—the one that served as a screen to the bed-chamber. While no expert in no such matters, he recognized in this tapestry a splendid work of art, both from its color and wealth ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... thee, good master," quoth Stutely, springing to his feet, "that thou hast chosen me for this adventure. Truly, my limbs do grow slack through abiding idly here. As for two of my six, I will choose Midge the Miller and Arthur a Bland, for, as well thou knowest, good master, they are stout fists at the quarterstaff. Is it not so, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... higher, higher, higher—swinging with that delightful rhythm that one knows best in dreams, lazily, idly, and yet with purpose and resolve. She was swinging far above the pain, the rebellion, the surrender. That was left for ever; the time of her tears, of her loneliness was over. Above her, yet distant, was a golden cloud, soft, iridescent, ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... which the lake in the center occupied one-fourth, the rest being in dense forest. The three soon had their lines in water, and they waited full of anticipation, but they waited in vain until long after night had come. Not one of the three received a bite. The lines floated idly. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of Minas Somewhat apart from the vil|lage, and nearer the Basin of Minas. But a celestial bright|ness—a more etherial beauty. And the retreating sun the sign of the scorpion enters. In-doors, warmed by the wide-|mouthed fireplace idly the farmer, Four times the sun had ris|en and set; and now on ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... of myself if any former opinions of mine could now induce me to think that the form of representation which, in such times as the present, has been found amply sufficient for the purpose of protecting the interests and securing the happiness of the people, should be idly and wantonly disturbed from any love of experiment or any predilection for theory. Upon this subject I think it right to state the inmost thoughts of my mind; I think it right to declare my most decided opinion that, even if the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thirty. He was well dressed, of a sprightly and gay appearance, a well-knit figure, and a rich dark complexion. As Arthur came over the stile and down to the water's edge, the lounger glanced at him for a moment, and then resumed his occupation of idly tossing stones into the water with his foot. There was something in his way of spurning them out of their places with his heel, and getting them into the required position, that Clennam thought had an ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Heselton slowly surveyed the ship's control room with a small, satisfied smile. The two pilots sitting far forward, almost hidden by their banks of instruments, the radar operators idly watching their scopes, the three flight engineers sitting intently at their enormous control consoles, and, just behind, the radio shack—its closed door undoubtedly hiding a game of cards. For weeks now, as Big ...
— A Matter of Magnitude • Al Sevcik
... them, Inseparably and eternally! The wisest and the best will prize thee most, And solitudes and cities will contend Which shall receive thee kindliest—sigh not so; Violence and fraud will never penetrate Where piety and poverty retire, Intractable to them, and valueless, And looked at idly, like the face of heaven. If strength be wanted for security, Mountains the guard, forbidding all approach With iron-pointed and uplifted gates, Thou wilt be welcome too in Aguilar, Impenetrable, marble-turreted, Surveying from aloft the limpid ford, The massive fane, the sylvan ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... allow of the fashion of calling the day of rest 'the Sabbath.' 'We keep not holy,' said he, 'the seventh-day Sabbath of the people of Israel, but the first day made holy for us by the resurrection of our Lord;' and I saying idly to him, out of the poet ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... care," looking down at me serenely. "Why should I?" He swung one long leg free and stopped idly, half in the car, ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... hope of seeing it again, and a loss without a hope is nearly always painful. Going out of the harbor we encounter Pictou Island and Light, and presently see the low coast of Prince Edward Island,—a coast indented and agreeable to those idly sailing along it, in weather that seemed let down out of heaven and over a sea that sparkled but still slept in a summer quiet. When fate puts a man in such a position and relieves him of all responsibility, with a book and a good comrade, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... they supped at Manneville, and sat afterward in the little square, tree-chequered, that lay before their inn. Miguel had procured a lute from the innkeeper, and he strummed idly as these two debated together of great matters; about them was an immeasurable twilight, moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere they could hear an agreeable ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... man idly pushed back his artificial bald head, revealing close red hair, and spoke dreamily, perhaps under the influence of Basil's ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... arch, playing on them. The stream arranges the sand in the shallow in bars, minute fixed undulations; the stream arranges the sunshine in successive flashes, undulating as if the sun, drowsy in the heat, were idly closing and unclosing his eyelids ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... I am an ugly man, but there was only a fortnight's difference in gaining a woman's love between John Wilkes and the handsomest man in England, courage, Jehu! I like idleness, because it shows that one can afford it; so I am puffing idly—ah! the balmy fragrance of this mild Havana! 'Oh! the effect of that first note from the woman one loves!' says one; 'Oh! the kiss on the dimpled cheek, the sound of the silver voice!' says another; but what can compare to the dreamy exquisite luxury of a good cigar? But, heavens, what ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... in the late gales, we reeved what new ones we had left, and made such other preparations as were necessary for the very different climate with which we were now shortly to encounter. The fine weather we met with between the tropics had not been idly spent. The carpenters found sufficient employment in repairing the boats. The best bower-cable had been so much damaged by the foul ground in Karakakooa Bay, and whilst we were at anchor off Oneeheow, that we were obliged to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... smoker and lit a cigar. His plans were well matured now and he was content; in this comfortable frame of mind he glanced idly ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... younger lady came rustling forward, pinching in a very slender waist, and casting idly preoccupied glances over the front of her dress, which was apparently designed for a ball. She was, in a singular way, at once ugly and pretty; she had protuberant eyes, and lips strangely red. She reminded Newman of his friend, Mademoiselle Nioche; this was what that much-obstructed ...
— The American • Henry James
... had thinned considerably, but it was still so misty that he could only just see the edge of the bleak shore where the little waves rolled in idly, looking gray and greasy under the fog. He leaned his arms on the sill, but aside from the seal-roar, everything seemed peaceful and the lad was just about to turn away from the window in the feeling of miserable anger that comes from being tired but not able to sleep, when ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... dearie," and she smoothed the hand that lay idly on the red and white quilt, as Dorothy stood beside the bed. "You'll be all right. Don't you go and get bothered. We've sent fer the doctor, and when he comes, he'll fetch you right home to your maw. But you have got to keep quiet, or else the fever will set in, and then ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... Kitty stood idly by the window of Byron's room, thinking restlessly of verses that were not Byron's, though there was in them, clothed in forms of the new age, the spirit of Byronic passion, and more than a touch of Byronic affectation—thinking also of the morning's telegram. Supposing Darrell's ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Idly he let his dull eyes stray about the room, from table to table, from face to face. Many there he knew by sight, from none could he hope for sympathy or even companionship. In his bitterness he envied the ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... a ridge which bounded a broad coulee on the east, he could look down upon the Stevens ranch nestling in the bottomland, the house half hidden among the cottonwoods. Through the last hours of the afternoon he watched it hungrily. The big corral ran down to the water's edge, and he noted idly that three panels of the fence extended out into the river, and that the muddy water was creeping steadily up until at sundown the posts of the first panel barely showed ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... it drifted idly into his mind that yonder arbor must be very wet to-night, and the cinder sidewalk out here much drier. As the thought moved him to draw one step back, the glow from the cottage broadened. Its front door had ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... song is sung the audience pay little attention. To patriotic songs they listen respectfully. A song which breathes the glories of literature as represented by Montaigne, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Moliere is tolerated idly. But when the stage is presently cleared for a ballet the young blousards—for they are mostly young men who gather here—are all attention. What is their disgust at perceiving that the dancers are men in ancient ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Employment for the weakest people, not capable of stronger Work, viz. Women and Children, and decrepit or aged people, now the most chargeable; as likewise for Beggars and Vagrants, who live idly, and by the sweat of other mens Labours, and can no way so effectually be brought to Industry and Order, as when reduced into to narrow a Compass or Confinement under fitly qualified ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... if I didn't think I heard one singin' up thar!" He put his foot on the lower round of the ladder, paused, and slowly ascended a dozen steps. Here he paused again. All at once the whole shaft was filled with the musical vibrations of a woman's song. Seizing the rope that hung idly from the windlass, he half climbed, half ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... brilliant light and undefined darkness contrasting with one another. Soon he became conscious of an odd odour, at first the merest suggestion of odour, in the room, and as it grew more decided he felt surprised that he was not reminded of the chemist's shop or the surgery. Clarke found himself idly endeavouring to analyse the sensation, and half conscious, he began to think of a day, fifteen years ago, that he had spent roaming through the woods and meadows near his own home. It was a burning day at the beginning of August, the heat had dimmed the outlines of all things ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... to perceive the absurdity of this system, to save which the theologians have invented another still more absurd, that it might become the foundation of all their religious revelations, and by means of which they idly imagine they can fully justify the divine providence. The system of truth supposes the free will of man—that he is his own master, capable of doing good or ill, and of directing his own plans. At the words free will, I already perceive, Madam, that ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... find that the others had retired, presumably to dress for dinner. Mechanically I crossed to the tallboy, which we had so fruitlessly surveyed, and began to finger it idly, wondering all the time whether my dream was wanton, or whether there was indeed some secret which we might discover. It did not seem possible, and yet.... That distant voice rang in my ears. "Measurements tell, measurements tell. But they never do ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... to wander through the alleys of the park idly and aimlessly, at most to give a coin to a ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... Ass, who was wandering idly about, one day came upon a Pack-Ass lying at full length in a sunny spot and thoroughly enjoying himself. Going up to him, he said, "What a lucky beast you are! Your sleek coat shows how well you live: how I envy you!" Not long after the Wild Ass saw his acquaintance ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... of clouds hastening to blot it out of sight—seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and, idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should be skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country clubhouse. I had taken? ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... idly wait for the doom to which she was condemned? He whose bright eyes could beam on her so radiantly had just wounded her with angry glances, like a foe or a stern judge, and his indignation had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... them with coffee. Mr. Sabin was idly sketching something on the back of his menu card. Felix broke into a little laugh as the ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... might some of the beautiful yachts which float idly on the waters of the Solent, be employed, if their owners, influenced by the love of immortal souls, would hoist the banner of peace at their mast-heads, and go forth to those distant islands, to sail here and there visiting the isolated stations, ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston
... a pity that England did not show some of this sympathy sooner, instead of standing idly by until Turkey had brought Greece to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 29, May 27, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... that night, I lay propped up with pillows, staring idly at the strange shadows thrown by the hidden lamp across the laundry ceiling and over the floor. As I looked it seemed to me that a change came over ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... propped upon my feet again like an intoxicated sparrow. Yet a little higher on the foundation, and we began to be affected by the bottom of the swell, running there like a strong breeze of wind. Or so I must suppose; for, safe in my cushion of air, I was conscious of no impact; only swayed idly like a weed, and was now borne helplessly abroad, and now swiftly - and yet with dream-like gentleness - impelled against my guide. So does a child's balloon divagate upon the currents of the air, and touch, and slide off again ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crew were looking out idly upon the Wavecrest as the steamship slipped by. A cook in a white cap came to one port and threw some slop into the sea. As he emptied the bucket my eyes roved to the very next port aft. There somebody ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster |
